OMDE 606

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OMDE 606: Costs & Economics of Distance Education & E-Learning


Spring 2012


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Course Goals/Objectives

The goal of the course is to enable the student to be a competent partner in the process of setting up and managing economic aspects of distance education, both on institutional level as well as on course level (i.e. with regard to media choice).

At the end of the course students should have achieved the following objectives. The student
  1. reviews the expansion of education and the soaring costs of educational provision.
  2. understands the conceptual framework of 'Human Capital Theory', the core theory of economics of education.
  3. identifies the cost drivers in distance education systems and is able to measure them.
  4. understands the role of overheads and the problem of cost attribution.
  5. is able to treat capital costs including the annualization of costs.
  6. handles the basic cost model and is able to analyze scale economies.
  7. analyzes and compares the cost structure of media and handles a cost model for rapid cost appraisal of a selected media configuration.
  8. applies the costing methodology to net-based learning and identifies the cost-drivers specific to net-based learning.
  9. analyzes the costs of online student support.
  10. discusses the impact of net-based learning on the cost-structure of distance education.
  11. examines the economics of learner support.
  12. explores implications of web 2.0 with respect to efficiency.